The Year in Fail: 2011’s Worst Tech Disasters

At the beginning of every year, we're promised the world from the tech industry's preeminent players. Like that infamous ring of Mordor, each new device will supposedly be the "one to rule them all."

But, no, not every piece of a hardware can be a category-leading smash hit. The pure Darwinism of consumer demand shows us that for every hardware winner, there must also be a hardware loser. More often than not, products launch with middling sales before falling off the aisle shelves and into the annals of gadget obscurity.

And those are just the pieces of gear that don't outright suck. For at the bottom of the tech gear food chain, we will find the complete and utter fails. These are the products that make us scratch our heads and wonder, "What were they thinking?" They are the Newtons, the Waves, the MiniDiscs -- the Edsels of technology history.

If anything, 2011 proved manufacturers are as committed as ever to delivering gear that no one wants. These six product debuts from the last 12 months give credence to a new adage: The bigger they're hyped, the harder they fall -- just like Duke Nukem, our gallery cover boy.

Motorola Xoom

In a relatively accurate jab at Apple's near-hegemonic dominance of the tablet market, Motorola compared Apple's widespread success to an Orwellian dystopia in an highly contentious Superbowl ad that portrayed iOS device users as mindless sheep (or iSheep) unable to think different(ly). For anyone old enough to remember TV coverage in 1984, it was a great potshot at Apple's own famous Superbowl ad of the same vein.

I wanted the Xoom to kick ass. I really did. Motorola's self-proclaimed iPad killer promised us the world back in February when the commercial first aired. The tablet included a brand new Google-fashioned operating system -- Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb -- as well as an industrial look and feel. The Xoom also boasted a secret weapon Apple doesn't have: 4G LTE connectivity.

But, alas, the Xoom was all but D.O.A. before hitting retail shelves. The device was to ship with a beta version of Adobe Flash, the performance of which was spotty at best (hence Apple's decision to eschew mobile Flash entirely). Furthermore, 4G LTE connectivity was also lacking, as users were required to mail their Xoom tablets back to the manufacturer for a hardware upgrade. Ridiculous.

Needless to say, customers weren't feeling it. Motorola managed to ship fewer than one million Xoom tablets to retailers over the first three fiscal quarters of 2011 (and note that to "ship" does not necessarily mean to "sell"). Compare that to quarterly iPad sales of close to 10 million each quarter, and Moto's numbers look even sadder.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Nintendo 3DS

Lots of anticipation surrounded Nintendo's next-gen handheld before its global March release -- but did the world really want a glasses-free, portable, 3-D gaming system? And then there was the cost. At its initial $250 price tag, the 3DS was Nintendo's most expensive handheld release to date.

Not all gamers were convinced they needed to have one. Nintendo sold only 3 million 3DS units worldwide from the first Japanese release in February to the wider global release in April. These are disappointing numbers for a Nintendo launch.

Another major point of contention, however, had nothing to do with price. The 3DS wasn't supported by a catalog of blockbuster games, and a conspicuous lack of content hobbled hardware sales, to be sure.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

UP Wristband

This one was a real bummer.

Jawbone made itself famous by creating non-hideous Bluetooth earpieces that cellphone users actually wanted to wear. So when the company said it was venturing into the greater "wearable" tech sector -- specifically focusing on a health-monitoring device -- we were stoked to see what they would come up with.

By most measures, Jawbone did a great job. The "UP" wristband launched in November, and despite being somewhat pricey ($100), initial sales were strong. The band itself was sleek, unobtrusive and comfortable to wear.

Jawbone did right by its customers earlier this month, offering full refunds to customers whether they returned the devices or not. Still, first impressions are always the most important, and the UP's terrible first impression is one that will be tough to forget.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook

Since the rise of the iPhone and Android, RIM's decline has been well documented. Button-centric smartphones have been on the way out, and RIM has failed to capitalize on the consumer market as well as it has the enterprise space.

The PlayBook, of course, was supposed to be the company's solution to both arenas. Consumer-oriented features like HDMI output and app store access were coupled to enterprise-grade security -- supposedly to the appeal of both camps.

Alas, we know what happened. The device launched with a serious lack of major apps (including the important ones like Facebook, Twitter and, yes, even without Angry Birds). To boot, the PlayBook didn't come with native e-mail, calendar and contacts applications -- basically the most essential apps that a device must offer.

Despite the promise of device updates, RIM continues to push back the timeline for delivering crucial features to consumers. And that, my friends, a successful product does not make.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

HP TouchPad

Ne'er a sadder tale than that of the TouchPad.

With an operating system that critics loved, and a vertically integrated hardware/software strategy that mirrored the likes of Apple and RIM, HP's TouchPad promised to be a worthy participant in the mobile device wars.

Unfortunately, the hardware and the software didn't play together as well as we would have hoped. WebOS ran sluggish on the TouchPad, with laggy load times that interrupted task-switching and opening programs. When held up to the iPad and even all the flawed Android Honeycomb devices, the TouchPad didn't look so hot.

Like RIM, HP initially promised the tablet would get better with time. Over-the-air device updates were promised as the weeks passed after launch.

Sadly, we'll never know if all those improvements were actually going to happen. HP killed the TouchPad a mere six weeks after its launch, discontinuing mobile hardware production in its entirety and eventually (after months of keeping it in limbo) open-sourcing the WebOS operating system.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Duke Nukem Forever

Finally, the tech flop that was 14 years in the making.

It's unfortunate, really. I loved Duke Nukem when it first came out on the PC so many years ago. Something of a hybrid between Doom, Lethal Weapon, and American Pie, it delivered hours of fun when I was an adolescent boy, shooting space pigs and throwing dollar bills at digital strippers (which, in retrospect, was probably not the most wholesome narrative). When news hit that a revamped, high-budget version of Duke was in the works, my 13-year-old self was ecstatic.

And then, for years, nothing. After years of pushing back the timeline of its release, Duke Nukem Forever became something of a joke in tech and gaming circles, like the Loch Ness monster, or Bigfoot. Rumors of Duke, but never Duke himself.

Then alas! We're told that we'd get a shipped version of the game come 2011.

Maybe it was that we matured, grew up and developed a more refined sense of humor, but the new Duke was ... a bit much. It was as if the developers felt they had to make up for the years' of absence by turning the volume up on Duke's personality. No longer is he just consumer-grade sexist -- he's a rampant, disgusting misogynist. Gone were the days of mere potty humor. Now we were given the the ability to actually pick up human feces and smear it across walls, objects, even other people.

More than that, gameplay was just ... bad. Clunky, awkward movements, unreliable interactive environments, and boring, repetitive combat. Take away the horrible filth that is Duke's personality, and you're left with a pretty bland shooter.

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